+ 5 - 1 | § ¶Do you know THIS song?
One of the things we're going to do this summer is start a family version of the Guinness Book of World Records. We'll include individual things like fastest runner, farthest jump, farthest watermelon seed spit, and longest time underwater, and some family efforts like biggest cookie and tallest tower of dominoes. So far we've mostly been working on the longest jump rope jumping. Technically i'm the record-holder, even beating out Juanito, which thrills me a bit. I never beat Juanito at anything. For the purposes of the book, though, i don't count. Those records are only for the kids to compete in. Bummer.
Houston loves his guitar. Loves it. He wants to take it everywhere with him - church, school, the grocery store - and is always surprised and disappointed when i tell him he can't bring it with him to those places. At home, he'll walk around with it, playing a few discordant notes with no definite rhythm, and then asks, "Do you know that song, Mama?" Um...maybe? He and Juanito sat outside today and played their guitars. So far Houston doesn't actually know any chords, but he's starting to get the hang of how to hold it and strum it anyhow. Progress!
Apparently, i am becoming a destroyer of technological gadgets. On the way to Chicago, i managed to disable both my mom's GPS and her cell phone simply by touching them. Neither would work AT ALL, for no good reason, for the rest of the trip. In Chicago, my palm pilot turned itself off and refused to turn back on or do anything else, for no apparent reason at all. Juanito had to completely reboot and recharge it when we got home, even though the battery wasn't nearly dead when i left. And then, at 4:35 pm yesterday, my watch stopped working. I know that it was 4:35, because even though it stopped working, it continued to display the time. My digital watch. The battery didn't die, it just STOPPED WORKING. So maybe that's what happened to my good camera. I touched it.
+ 6 - 1 | § ¶Pictures from Chicago
We're back, but i'm beat, so here are some pictures, and i'm going to bed!
+ 3 - 3 | § ¶Sixth Annual Girl's Night!
Today (and tomorrow) is our sixth annual Girl's Night Out with my mom and sisters. Fun! We are in Chicago. Today was spent at IKEA, where we shopped and acted silly and were amused by ridiculous things. My sister Jackie bought a gigantic picture, and will be riding home like this. The rest of us bought more normal-sized things.
From there we went to the Cheesecake Factory, where we had humongous servings of delicious food. And then we had to make the very difficult decision of which cheesecake to choose.
And then we went to the hotel to play games and eat our cheesecake. Yum!
+ 5 - 0 | § ¶Noisy
I've had two days in a row where i didn't take any pictures. That may be some kind of a record for me.Katrina has been feeling slightly under the weather for the past few days. I'm not sure how much she doesn't feel well, because most of the time she's fine, but then she'll occasionally do something odd that makes me think, "Huh. Maybe she is kind of sick." Like...we were playing outside, and Katrina decided to play soccer with Zane, which is all well and good, except that then she started running, and as she ran she said, "Ow! Ow! Ow!" When i inquired into why in the world she was saying "Ow!" so many times, she said nonchalantly, "Oh, well. I feel a little bit sick, and when i run, it hurts my knees." So there may be something there.
Apparently, a side effect of her illness is the need to say everything EXCEPTIONALLY! LOUDLY! And ENTHUSIASTICALLY! Zane, of course, watches her being all loud and silly and jumps right on board. And then Houston came home....
It was a noisy day. Sometimes after the kids are in bed, i really enjoy the silence. Mmmm. Quiet.
+ 1 - 6 | § ¶One more step on the road to Kindergarten
Tonight we had a picnic for the families of kids who are going into kindergarten. Katrina was all shades of excited. We ate hot dogs, played on the playground, picked out a pink shirt with the school's name on it, won a gift card for some restaurant i've never heard of, and came home. As we were getting ready for bed, Katrina asked, "So am i going to school tomorrow, then?" Shoot. I'd finally convinced her that it was going to be a long time until school started, and now we have to go through that whole rigmarole again. On the bright side, she seems a lot more comfortable with the whole "talking to people she doesn't know" thing than Houston was when he was going into school. She chatted it up with everyone around us while we were eating.
I have some of the cutest conversations with Zane. For example: "Mom? Can i take two cars outside, please? Could i, Mom?" (Me - Um, sure.) "Thank you, Mom! How about if i take three? That ok? Oh, thank you, Mom!" He says thank you about everything. It's adorable. Like, "Me have a poopy diaper!" (Me - Well, let's change that!) "Thank you, Mom!" Hilariously cute.
+ 1 - 3 | § ¶Weird things my kids do
In the past few months, Zane has taken up meowing. He meows. I mean, he still talks most of the time, but every once in a while (at least once a day, i'd say), he'll start meowing instead of talking, and refuse to actually use words. When he's meowing, he also likes it when i pet him on the head. Either he has a very good imagination and likes to pretend that he's a cat or he is developing some kind of serious mental illness wherein he switches between personas - one of which is a cat. Weirdo.
When he is, y'know, being a person, he has gotten remarkably good at talking. He'll say things now, and i just have to look at him in amazement, because...that's a totally NORMAL thing for a person to say. Simple things, like, "That's my shoe on that bench," but ... when did he learn to talk in such complete sentences? And with such a good vocabulary? He doesn't even call Katrina "Rana" anymore. She is simply, "Katrina." It makes me proud. And a little sad.
Also, he as discovered that he can roll his tongue.
Speaking of weird things my kids do, Houston has it completely stuck in his brain that we are going on "volcation." I correct him, saying, "VAcation," and he agrees, "Yes, yes. Vacation. So when we go on volcation...."
Katrina calls Hot Wheels cars, "Not real cars." The other day we were talking about what we'd do if we were only one inch tall, and she said, "I would drive around in a Not Real car...." A few minutes later, Juanito killed the conversation by explaining, "Well, according to the laws of physics, if you were only one inch tall, you'd die of hypothermia...." Conversation killer.
ANYHOW...today. We went over to my parents' house for hot dogs cooked over the fire, and also to play and hang out with family. The kids all jumped like crazy on the trampoline. (Houston cracks me up.) They played on the neighbor's slide, ran around barefoot, and generally got filthy but had a blast. Houston got to cook his own hot dog over the fire for the first time, and loved it.
And this? Zane is totally giving me the "Are you seriously taking ANOTHER picture of me, Mom?" face.
+ 3 - 3 | § ¶Of splinters, skulls, and neighbors who are more interesting than we are.
Zane spent about 20 minutes this afternoon standing on this little bit of fence in our backyard, just watching the next-door neighbors. I'm not really sure what they were doing, but apparently they are much more interesting than whatever was going on in our backyard. Every once in a while he'd come over to me, babble something, and then go back to watching the people next door.
My little cousin Michelle, who is not so little anymore, graduated from college this week. (Congratulations again, Michelle! Yeah!) We went to her house for a graduation party, and while we were there Houston found a deer skull in their yard. A skull and a jawbone. He left the skull, but he brought the jawbone home with us, and it will (presumably) end up in the garden with the skull he got last year from our neighbor. If we keep getting weird bones to put in our yard, we're going to eventually have to explain ourselves to our neighbors, or they're going to start thinking something odd is going on over here.
While we were there, Katrina got a little sliver in her thumb. Her important thumb. The thumb that she uses for sucking. She was quite distressed, and really wanted me to take it out, except that she DIDN'T want me to take it out, but she did, but not using anything like a tweezers or a pin. Every time i would get within a few inches of touching her thumb, she would start to scream bloody murder and try to pull her hand away. Trying to carefully extract a tiny sliver from the hand of a screaming, wiggling 5-year-old is an incredibly frustrating venture. It took the better part of 15 minutes, and had Houston in tears by the end of it. (Houston was crying, not because he felt bad for Katrina, but because she was hurting his ears with the seriously loud screaming. The volume, it was kind of ridiculous.)
+ 5 - 1 | § ¶Summertime!
Summer has clearly arrived. Today we jumped rope, finally planted our vegetables in the raised bed Juanito built, blew dandelions, played dolls outside, planted a bed of wildflowers that i'm really hoping grows, and generally enjoyed the lovely weather.
I'm trying something new here. When we're in New York, we're going to be out and about most days. Occasionally, my kids get hungry. So i'm trying to come up with ideas of things that we can pack and carry around with us. Things that will neither spoil nor get bruised and squished. Things that are at least mostly healthy. I am therefore trying to dry fruit. Today we're doing apples and strawberries. If all goes well and it actually tastes good, then tomorrow i'm going to attempt pineapple. The kids are all shades of excited about it, so hopefully they'll actually like to eat the dried fruit too. Fingers crossed and all that.
+ 4 - 2 | § ¶Friday
Houston had only half a day of school today, and somehow it seemed like today was twice as long. In a good way. We cleaned out the play room, which was a complete disaster, and were totally finished before Zane even woke up from his nap. We still had time to go steal dirt for our garden AND play AND paint AND have pizza/movie night. It makes me really look forward to summer vacation, when the days will be long and free and un-filled with things like school. Then again, today might have felt twice as long because the kids woke up about 45 minutes earlier than what i would normally wake them up, which meant that they had time to go outside to play before school, which also led to Zane have a total meltdown before 10:00 am. Hopefully we will NOT be doing that whole crazy wake-up-at-the-crack-of-dawn thing all summer long.
Katrina and Juanito are really cute.
+ 5 - 2 | § ¶Fun at the library
This afternoon my mom called to tell me that there was a to-do over at the library with sloppy joes and high school jazz bands playing and games for the kids to play. We'd been planning to go to the park, but the kids were all, "Games? I want to go there!"
Turns out, there WERE sloppy joes and bands playing (which my kids loved to the point of breaking out in dancing), but as far as fun things to do, the only thing was a craft to color elephant headbands. The kids loved it, though. We stayed outside a long time (it was WARM today!), and then went in to pick out a few books before heading home.
I opened the windows this afternoon - the ones without screens - and immediately Zane threw a car out the window, Katrina dropped our tiny-little-just-barely-starting-to-grow sunflower out the window, and i caught Houston hanging halfway out the window with just his legs inside. So...the window was only open for about 15 minutes total. Bummer.
+ 1 - 5 | § ¶A last and a first
Katrina had her last ballet class today. Since she is going into kindergarten in the fall, this might possibly be her very last class. Unless there's a session that happens in the afternoons. But anyhow. Since it was her last class, they had the little performance for the parents, where we could go in the room and watch and clap for them and all that. They did a whole little routine, which was completely adorable. They all got to leap over the orange circle, a feat that usually makes me giggle as the kids just kind of run over it while thinking they are leaping, but which some of the kids have gotten markedly better at. Really, though, they all just danced around and spun and looked cute, and that's all we can expect of them so far.
For his birthday (and partly for Christmas), Houston used all the money he was given and bought a guitar. His first guitar. He chose blue. Initially he chose a more normal tan color, but that one turned out to not be available in the 3/4 size, so instead he went with blue. I kind of expected to hate it, but it's not bad. Not bad at all. He loves is. Hopefully he will be less hopeless than i was when i tried (repeatedly) to learn to play.
+ 1 - 4 | § ¶Smoooooooke on the Waaaaater
Somebody in our neighborhood - somebody who lives AT LEAST 3 houses down - just got a new electric guitar and has been playing it at random times for the past three days. Loudly. And badly. Very loudly, and very badly. Lots of "Smoke on the Water" with a little bit of nonsense to balance it out. My windows and doors are all shut, and yet...it is loud enough that i'm worrying that it will wake up the kids. I feel like that stereotypical grumpy old man. Pretty soon i'm going to start yelling, "Hey, kids! Get off my lawn!"
Juanito tried to fix my good camera. It stopped working for no reason several months ago, and the camera-fixing guy said that he might be able to fix it, but first i would have to promise him my firstborn, and while it's a great camera...it's just not worth that much. There was nothing to lose in letting Juanito take it all apart, do some soldering, fiddle a bit, and see if he could make it work. So far...no luck. I am sad. I have a good enough point and shoot, but i really wanted to have a GOOD camera for bringing to New York.
Speaking of New York.... I am a geek. A Wikipedia-using, Google-mapping, list-making geek. I have been finding all the places i think we should go in NY, mapping out where they are so that i can formulate a plan of where to go on which days, finding and organizing any and all interesting information about said places, etc. I am going to look like the touristy tourist ever. Except that i won't have a camera hanging around my neck, sadly.
+ 0 - 6 | § ¶My parents are brilliant
We don't get any kind of TV guide, so occasionally i'll call my parents to ask them when a specific show is going to be on. Houston, who is now old enough to understand days of the week, asked if we could watch the falling down show tonight. (The falling down show = America's Funniest Videos.) The time and day and everything changes on that show so often that i am never sure when or if it's going to be on, so i called my parents and asked them. After i got off the phone, i walked over to the kids and said, "I called Grandma and Grandpa, and they said that the falling down show is not going to be on tonight." Katrina gasped and exclaimed, "They know everything!"
+ 2 - 5 | § ¶Graham looks cute in the Tigers hat too
Zane is quickly developing a deep, meaningful relationship with his hat. (My dad confirmed that it is a Tigers hat.) He wore it all over again today, except when he was being silly with it like this or making silly faces like this.
My parents came over today and helped us work on our yard. It amazes me how much more quickly the yard work seems to get done when they're here. We ripped out all of the next-door neighbor's ugly trees that were lining our fence (They won't care, because they're gone! No one else has moved in yet!), ripped out three zillion weeds along the side of the house, where there were enough baby trees and huge weeds to lose a small child in, and trimmed back our roses. Amazingly, my dad managed to find two teensy little Rose of Sharon bushes amid all the weeds and other trees, and we moved them to a more reasonable spot. Oh, AND they brought over and planted some new bushes for us. Slowly, one area at a time, we are getting our yard to look more like a yard and less like an abandoned lot.
+ 3 - 3 | § ¶It would take HOURS
My favorite conversation today:
Me - "So, Houston, what was the most interesting thing you learned today?"
Houston - "Ummmm..."
Katrina - "Maybe Korean?"
Houston - "No! It would take HOURS to learn Korean."
Katrina is getting to be an amazingly good artist. We had family drawing time tonight, and Katrina drew a picture of the Statue of Liberty, followed by a cityscape that she copied from me, and it's a remarkably good copy. This afternoon she drew and cut out a flower, then colored and cut some little butterflies, and had us all play "Pin the butterfly on the flower." It was her favorite part of the day, according to her.
Zane has commandeered a hat. It's a hat with a big D on the front, presumably for Detroit. Maybe the, uh, Tigers? Whatever the baseball team is here in Michigan. Zane loves this hat. He wears it out in the yard, to the store, in the house.... I think that maybe it's because the first time he put it on, i told him, "Wow! You look SO cute!" I guess he likes to look cute.
Houston got home from school today and asked, "Is it ok if i go up to my room and just read a book for a while?" He only lasted in his room for a few minutes, but then spent the next couple of hours in the front room devouring his newest book. I love watching him become a bookworm.
In sort-of-family-related news, our next-door neighbors moved away today. This means that when someone knocks on our door, we will now have NO IDEA who it is! Weird.
+ 3 - 3 | § ¶Remembering
Eight years ago today, our good friend Tim died. I remember thinking, at the time, that i wanted life to never really feel normal again - that it shouldn't feel normal, because Tim wasn't going to be there. About five months after his death, i found out i was pregnant, and a new normal began. Three kids later, "normal" has a completely different meaning, but i often think, "Wow, it really sucks that Tim isn't here, because he would love our kids. Our kids would adore him." They know of him, of course. We have pictures of him around, and they know stories about things we did with him. Houston feels a connection to him because of his middle name. But ... man, i wish he was still around.
Houston wrote in our little thankfulness journal tonight. These are the things he is thankful for: That Mom plays with me. That mom is real. That we do not live in Rwanda. Strawberry ice cream. That i am alive. Nobody actually hates me. Dad. Mom. Katrina. Zane. Graham. That August is alive. Nobody wants to kill me. The end of Houston's life isn't yet.
Also, and totally unrelated, i have totally started planning our New York trip. I'm trying to get the kids excited, to get them to recognize some of the places that we will be going. I got tickets to the Statue of Liberty today, and i'm totally excited about that. I've been reading books and taking notes, and am remembering that i am nothing if not a planner. I love planning. When i think of it.
+ 5 - 0 | § ¶Mom's night
Have i mentioned that my kids are monkeys? Because they are.
Tonight Houston's class had a "Mom's night," where all of the moms were invited to go to the classroom with their child. We did a little craft together - making a milk carton flower pot - and then planted ourselves a little red flower. After choosing and planting ours, i realized that i should probably have chosen one that was not quite blooming yet, but...i am not the gardener that my mom is. It's pretty, anyhow. And it probably won't live long enough to matter. We had cookies and punch, and just spent an hour hanging out with our first-graders.
I don't get a lot of one-on-one time with Houston, what with him being in school all day. He's a really cute kid. Smart, too.
Speaking of his being smart.... His teacher told us that she was reading a book to the class last week, and there was a funny part that was over the heads of most kids. Houston was the only one who laughed. Aw.
+ 6 - 0 | § ¶Interview Monday
What is the thing that is the most scary?
H - "If i fall off a cliff and never see you again."
K - "Bears having a very scary face."
Z - "The monster."
What is the thing that makes you the most happy?
H - "When you hug me really tight"
K - "Having big surprises."
Z - "The funny guy."
What is the thing that makes you the most sad?
H - "If Zane died or you died or anyone in my family died."
K - "When people scare me and yell."
Z - "The cats. They wake me up!"
What is the most fun?
H - "When you bring me to fun places or play fun games with me."
K - "Playing with each other."
Z - "The cats."
What is the most annoying thing?
H - "When Graham barks at neighbors all the time."
K - "Being yelled at."
Z - "The kid yawning. Only one kid."
What is the silliest thing?
H - "Graham when he's excited."
K - "Making silly faces."
Z - "The guy. Maybe the cats."
+ 7 - 1 | § ¶Mother's Day
During the summers when we were little, my mom used to kick us all outside, lock the door, and refuse to let us in the house for anything but the bathroom. We were forced to create our own fun by playing games like hide-and-seek, ghost in the graveyard, packed sardines, and eeny-einy-over. We made elaborate obstacle courses for each other using whatever we could find. We rode our bikes around the block repeatedly. We made up roller skating routines and played with all the neighborhood kids.
At first, we would stand at the back door looking in at her pathetically. She stood her ground, and those hours that we were outside are the times i remember the best. I've often thought how awesome she was to force us to have fun like that. It never occurred to me until recently that maybe she was partially just trying to get us out of her hair.
Either way, i fully appreciate the way my mom forced us to make our own fun. In many, many ways, i try to imitate her parenting style. So, Mom, thanks for kicking us out of the house on nice days. Thanks for making us use our imaginations. Thanks for telling us to "spit in a shoe" when we told you we were bored. ("What should i do? Spit in a shoe." I was told that OFTEN. I now tell my kids the same thing. They look at me like i'm crazy.)
Happy Mother's day! To my mom (who is obviously the best), but to my mother-in-law (who raised a pretty awesome son) too.
+ 1 - 7 | § ¶Who is walking whom?
It was a beautiful day out there, so we spent a lot of the day outside. The kids all love to walk Graham up and down the sidewalk. Houston has no problem controlling him. Katrina can nearly always get him where she wants him to go, if she puts all her weight behind the leash. But Zane has only as much control as Graham GIVES him. Graham is pretty smart and loves walking around on his leash, so he pretends to obey Zane until he really wants to go somewhere, and then he just kind of goes. Zane either hangs on and gets pulled over, or he just lets go and runs after Graham crying and trying to catch up to grab the leash again. Amazingly, he continues to want to "walk" Graham.
My kids make funny faces. They LOVE to make funny faces. As soon as we start making funny faces for the camera, they flock around me to see who can make the best and most silly funny face. It's kind of awesome. Also, i'm going to have the BEST pictures to embarrass them with.
+ 1 - 5 | § ¶Testing! And also? Dinosaurs Destroy Detroit!
Katrina got to go for her Kindergarten testing this morning. She was all shades of excited. At first she was excited because, even though i told her twenty thousand times that she was NOT starting kindergarten this morning, she still thought that she was starting kindergarten this morning. But even after she finally accepted that this was just to make sure that she COULD go to kindergarten, she was still nothing but excited. All the other moms were saying, "Oh, my child was just so nervous about today...." Not my kid. She trotted off with the teacher in charge of testing, happy as a clam. She came back about 45 minutes later, cheerful and glowing, and the teacher immediately told me, "Yep. She is definitely ready for kindergarten." So ... hurrah! And also? Aw. My baby is growing up!
Speaking of my babies growing up? Houston wrote a book this week. He's been working on it in his spare time, adding a chapter here and there, and finished it today. And if i may say so, it is awesome. So, without further ado, here is Houston's book, copied with his spelling and everything. I will provide a little code-breaker if the spelling is too confusing. (Datroyte = Detroit. For your convenience.)
i'm still talking...
+ 6 - 1 | § ¶Running
Houston did a LOT of running today. At school he had a "Fund Racer," where he ran around the field approximately 11 times. When he got in the car after school, i asked him how it went. He said, "Great! Oh, and the field is 2 miles around. I asked my teacher." I was a bit skeptical, because...um...i don't think his field is anywhere NEAR that big around. And then he as all, "And i ran around it, like, ELEVEN times. So...what is 11 plus 11? 22? I ran 22 miles today!" And then i had to explain to him what a marathon is and why i thought that was a bit unlikely, and he agreed that probably the teacher said POINT 2 miles. As in 0.2. And that would make a lot more sense.
After school, we came home just long enough for Houston to do his homework and Katrina to run with Graham up and down and up and down the sidewalk, pausing occasionally to sit very picturesquely on the grass near the street to watch the construction guys at work. It was terribly cute: Katrina sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, Graham sitting at attention next to her, both intently watching the workers, who often stopped to say hello and pet Graham. I wish i had taken a picture, but i was sitting in the car with Zane, who was completely zonked out in his car seat, and every time i got up to sneak over, they'd bounce up and start running again.
And then, we were off to ANOTHER race. Houston has been participating in the mileage club at his school, which means that he runs around the field and playground during recess and gets points for it. He's run a lot of miles - enough to qualify him for the Junior Riverbank Run. (On the paper i got, i don't think it actually SAID that this was part of the Riverbank Run, so i expected a small gathering of about 100 kids, not the swarming mass of three zillion people that were actually there.) There were inflatables again - the same exact ones, i think, that were at the YMCA two days ago, except that this time the lines were long enough that we only went on 2 things one time each.
And then we went and sat on the bleachers and waited patiently until it was Houston's turn to start. Katrina leaned against me, silently protesting that she was So. Tired. And then it was Houston's turn, and i sent him off to the mob, while Katrina and Zane and i stood by the fence ready to take a picture and cheer him on...except that we never saw him. Even though he ran around the track TWICE, we never saw him. So eventually we gave up and just went to meet him at the designated spot, and ... there he was. All red-faced from running even though i SWEAR he never went past us. It may be because he blended into all the other white-shirted, black-shorted, blond-haired kids running at the same time.
So basically, i have a picture of everyone ELSE running today, but not Houston, who ran his very first organized race-type thing. And has the "Finisher" ribbon to prove it.
+ 6 - 1 | § ¶Prime!
The other day, we realized that since my birthday, our entire family is currently a prime number old. Juanito and i are both 37 (OLD!), Houston is 7, Katrina is 5, and Zane is 2. And since Zane will be 3 next, that means that we'll all be prime until Juanito's next birthday. And now that i am typing this, i realize that we are probably the only people who would actually think that this is exciting. Because we are totally geeks.
Katrina had her little ballet class today, and it occurred to me that she may only have the next two weeks left before she is finished with ballet. Perhaps permanently. Because i don't think they have ballet with the city's recreational department during the summer, and next year she will be in kindergarten. And since she will be in morning kindergarten and the rec department's classes are in the morning, and ACTUAL ballet classes are much more expensive.... So that's kind of sad. She really likes ballet.
+ 7 - 0 | § ¶Shortest, lamest post ever. Sorry.
As we pulled into the parking lot for the YMCA this evening for ZUMBA!, we were greeted by a parking lot full of big bouncy-type play things. I don't know the proper name for them, but there was the big bouncy house, a huge bouncy slide, a bouncy obstacle course-type thing, and some other stuff. They had been making hot dogs and painting faces, but we didn't have time to do those things before, and they stopped right after ZUMBA! was finished. The kids each got a balloon and lots of turns on the toys, though, so they were not too disappointed.
+ 2 - 5 | § ¶Happy Birthday to me!
Today i got to celebrate my birthday! My actual birthday, two days ago, was a really good day. But it just didn't really feel like a birthday. Today? Today was a birthday. Hurrah! Beth came over and brought a picnic lunch, and we went with the kids to the park. The kids climbed all over the place, and then ran back to eat a bite or two before running back to play again. (The boys ate bananas and then ran around the rest of the time with stickers on their heads.) We went to look at the flowers, and while i was distracted Katrina and Zane both picked a tulip from the park's garden. Whoops. Houston entertained himself by picking a zillion dandelions.
And then we came back home and put up cute streamers. They're flowers and butterflies! CUTE! And she brought cupcakes and a cake that were really, really ridiculously adorable. And delicious! And everyone sang to me and everything. Happy!
After cake and some more hanging out, Beth and i went out for dinner while Juanito stayed home with the kids.
So it was a great day. Hurrah!
+ 6 - 0 | § ¶Books and more books
All three of my kids love reading. On the occasional night that we are rushed and have no time for reading before bed, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Houston is still reading like crazy, and has read two full books in the past three or four days. Katrina can recite by heart several books, which she then reads to herself, Zane, or anyone who will listen. Zane climbs on my lap whenever i sit down on the couch and demands that i read to him. And all of that is great (mostly), but i think that my favorite part of it is when i see one of my kids reading to another one. It's just completely awesome.
We watched "The Tale of Despereaux" tonight, and HEY! It is absolutely nothing like the book. NOTHING. It's like a completely different story, but with most of the same characters. Katrina kept asking, "What is going to happen with THAT?" And then i'd have to say, "Um, i have no idea, because it's not in the book." Seriously. TOTALLY DIFFERENT. What's up with that?
+ 0 - 5 | § ¶Random snippets
Juanito was one of several people honored today at Wedgwood for serving a long time. (Juanito has been there 10 years. This, in a job where most people burn out after about 2-3 years. Go him!) So my mom came over this morning and hung out for a while, and then she babysat the kids while i went off to Accolades to cheer for Juanito and all the other people being honored. There were pictures of each honoree and their "lookalike." (Juanito's was Sideshow Bob.) There was a game of "Are you smarter than an honoree," which featured questions about the honorees, with honorees up on the panel to help out the person. The most perplexing moment was when one of the ladies was asked the question, "Which honoree was featured in the New York Times for advanced online editing tools?" She chose to peek at Juanito's answer. His answer was...himself. She decided that he was WRONG, and chose a different answer. Of course, he was right. Duh.
Beth was there, because she helped plan and run it. Hi Beth!
Yesterday was all rainy, but Zane and Katrina both got all dressed in their rain gear and went outside to play in the backyard anyhow. I was kind of surprised that Zane was willing, because usually he hates the rain. Weird. Today was sunny and in the high 50's, so the kids and i went outside to play games like "Mother May I," "Uncle Sam," and "Red Light, Green Light." I love games with rules. I'm much better at them than i am at games like, "Hey! You pretend that you're the bike-fixer again, ok? For the three billionth time this week." And then we took cute and silly pictures together. (On a side note.... For many years, Juanito completely believed that i didn't know how to make funny faces. And then the kids were born, and, well, now i'm apparently willing to let everyone in the world see me looking like a complete dork. Ah well.)
My mom offered to babysit the kids if Juanito and i wanted to go out to dinner, so we took her up on that. On the way there, Katrina exclaimed, "I'm getting babysitted AGAIN? I've NEVER had a babysitter two times in ONE DAY!" And Houston's response was, "Are we staying at Grandma's house? Awesome! We can eat as much food as we want!" (For the record, i don't think i've ever starved them. Or told them to stop eating. In fact, yesterday i made them cupcakes for dinner. All three kids declared, "I don't like that." But then Houston and Zane devoured them. Katrina refused to even try them. It's not my fault they don't eat is my point.)